What is an Informer?

Thames Advertiser, Volume XXIX, Issue 9234, 29 December 1898, Page 3

What is an Informer?

JUSTICE PENNEFATHER'S DEFINITION. The torm " informoi " is i no lint if by no moans infrequently loosoly and inaccurately used, arid its dofini" tion may prove interesting. During the summing up in the recent arson caso, His Honor, Mr Justice Pounofather, on this point, made the following oVsemtitins" lam sorry that counsel for the prisoners have thought proper to speak (o you of ' tho infoi* mor Henderson,' bocause, gentlemen, I may tell you, as a tuattor of law, he is not an informer. In the grammatical senß'e of tho torm, oE sourse, everybody in the world is an informer; ever) * body sometimes gives information to someone; and, in another sense, people lay informations, ant! are informs ants; but that is not the 6' use in which tho term is commonly usf'<! in law, and it is not a sense from whii h you ought to draw any inference. Tho word 'informer' has the teohuioal meaning in law of an 'approver '• that is to say, one of a party of guiity men who has turned Queen's evi lenco, and receives money for doing .mj. Evident e of an informor, thorefor.i, had to bo taken with very great cauiion, because it comos from a tainted source. Henderson was sevoroly crosr«?xamined, and ho has shown, and his testimony has boon corroborated, that ho never received anything.from tho Crown, never expocted anything, and is under no' piomise whatever. The only information he gave was given when he was asked to give it, am' therefore, he is not an inform?-, n (1 your minds should not bo in any way prejudiced by the use of tho terra."